A JURY has retired to consider its verdict in the case of a Coventry man accused of raping his wife.

The middle-aged man has denied he raped his ex-wife while their young child played downstairs at their Radford home – claiming the accusation was made as part of a plot by her to get a British passport.

During the trial at Coventry Crown Court the woman claimed he treated her “like a slave” and repeatedly beat her before he forced himself upon her in 2009.

The couple met moments before their arranged marriage in Pakistan almost ten years ago.

The former businessman said the rape allegation came after he told her he wanted to return to live abroad, where he had previously owned a company before moving to Coventry and taking up a low level job in a supermarket.

He told jurors his wife’s family had insisted upon seeing his British passport before their marriage and that leaving the UK would have scuppered her chances of qualifying for one, adding: “The fact is the only reason she got married to me was for the British passport.

"Her parents would have given any blind, deaf and dumb person their daughter’s hand for a British passport.”

His wife filed for divorce and made the allegation of rape last year when her husband was called abroad on business to deal with properties they still owned from a two-year spell living overseas, before moving to the UK in 2006.